SEMI-FICTIONAL CHRONICLE of the EVIL THAT INFECTS WASHINGTON, D.C.
To read Prologue and Character Guide, please see www.washingtonhorrorblog.com, updated 6/6//2017.
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Sunday, May 08, 2016

Even Washingtonians care about about Mother's Day!

Bridge had brought White House butler Clio some egg salad, potato salad, and cherry pie from Safeway to have Mother's Day lunch with her. He knew it was always a miserable day for her, and she'd be thinking about the deceased twins all day long.

"The garden's lookin' real nice," she said. "That rain made everybody miserable except the trees and the gardens."

"Yeah, saved me some work," said Bridge, the head gardener. "But the sunshine'll do them some good, too." He looked over to the ghosts of Regina and Ferguson, watching with the quiet grace that only came to the forever pre-schoolers on days like Mother's Day. "I think Mrs. Obama gonna miss the garden quite a bit."

"I don't think I can work for those tramps," said Clio.

"Trumps!" corrected Bridge.

"I know what to call them," retorted Clio.

"They'll never set a foot inside this place!" snorted the gardener. "Mrs. Clinton on her way back--you just wait and see! I know you came after her time, but you'll like her."

"But a LOT a people like those tramps."

"And a LOT a people like rap music, but Kanye ain't gettin' elected and neither is that fool Trump."

"They'd be so big today," said Clio.

Bridge nodded silently. She always changed the subject abruptly like that--sooner or later, she would want to say something about Reggie and Fergie.

"I know they were a handful, and that GSA man still holds a grudge about that Ming vase they tricked the Secret Service agent into shooting, but I always thought they would turn out fine."

Bridge looked again at the twins, who had recently been under the firm guiding hand of Ghost Dennis. "Yes, that kinda spirit and energy just need to be shaped right."

Up in Columbia Heights, Angela de la Paz was also observing a childless Mother's Day--in her case because the father of Lucas had died in combat and she knew she was too young and unready to raise her son, whom she had given up for adoption. Dulles Samuelson had offered to take her to a fancy brunch, but she had insisted on pupusas at a hole-in-the-wall Salvadoran place.

"So you're really Salvadoran?" asked Dulles.

Angela hesitated for a moment. "Your father paid for me to have plastic surgery so that my facial traits would be more generic." She saw him swallow hard. "He wanted me to be able to take on all kinds of phony identities. It was called Project Cinderella." She hadn't said or heard those words out loud for awhile, and they sounded very odd to her now. "I was supposed to become a seductress super spy, but it didn't really work out."

"Because you developed your gift?"

"I still don't always know what I'm supposed to do with this gift," she said. "I work for Charles Wu for money, but I argue with him a lot about his agenda."

"Which is what?"

"That's a good question. Mostly to make money, but he has a convoluted psyche shaped from growing up in Hong Kong with his mother before the Chinese got it back from Britain. His English father paid for him to go to school in Britain, and eventually he started being a triple agent: Hong Kong, Beijing, Britain. Actually I guess it's quadruple now, since he feeds intelligence to Americans--but not for money, since they think he's a businessman. I think he honestly does not have any particular allegiance."

"That seems dangerous."

"He's the luckiest man I've ever met," she said without irony.

"Because your ESP tells you when he's in danger?"

"Oh, long before I met him," she said. "His chi is astronomical."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he was meant for more. What are you really going to do here, Dulles?" she asked, abruptly changing the subject. She had not yet told him she was in contact with the ghost of his father.

"I just want to help! I didn't know ghosts and zombies and demons were real! And in Washington! I don't understand why my father and sister didn't understand how special your gift was."

Angela glanced over at Ghost Henry, who was glowering with frustration that her plan to get Dulles safely out of Washington had backfired. "My gift is not always obvious. I've never gotten a message telling me to wipe out the Heurich Society, even though I easily could. I'm not out fighting crime every night. I'm not out fighting demons or zombies every night. I just try to go where my instincts and visions tell me to go. This is a very expensive city, Dulles. What are you going to do here?"

"I have inherited money," he said. "I can buy a house, and you can live there, too." She looked at him in surprise. "As a housemate, I mean," he added quickly. "And then I'll find a job eventually. Maybe I should be a cop--it would be something, right? Or an FBI agent--my dad would hate that!"

Angela couldn't help but smile, not daring to look at Ghost Henry, a former CIA agent. "Weren't you an insurance agent in Philly? You could do that."

"How can I go back to insurance?!"

"It's an honest living," said Angela.

Over in Georgetown, Golden Fawn had allowed herself to be taken to a fancy Mother's Day brunch--by her husband, Marcos Vazquez, and their adopted son, Joey Bent Oak. Unfortunately, she was not enjoying it much because, like many Washingtonians, young Joey was fascinated by election politics.

"If so many Republicans voted for Trump, why are there people saying he's not a real Republican?"

"We basically have a two-party system here," said Vazquez (who had grown up in basically one-party Puerto Rico). "That means the parties have to create broad coalitions to get votes. Trump talks out of both sides of his mouth to pander for votes. Experienced politicians know he can never deliver most of the nonsense he says he can, and they don't trust him to uphold conservative values."

This did not help, so Joey turned to Golden Fawn instead. "Why are there people saying he's not a real Republican."

Golden Fawn couldn't help but smile. "Because he's a racist independent who hijacked the Republican primaries with a lot of lies."

"Huh," said Joey, pausing to reflect on this.

"Nice sound bite," smiled Marcos, shaking his head.

A few miles away, in Southwest Plaza, conspiracy blogger Glenn Michael Beckmann took another gulp of whiskey, then returned to his post blaming Metro track fireballs on shoddy work done by illegal Mexican aliens for Donald Trump's construction company, underground real estate demons, rats chewing on wires, and zombies' taking over the electricians' union. His solution? Deploy roller-skating homeless people with fire extinguishers in each station: this would cure the homeless problem AND prevent Metro from shutting down for repairs! He took another gulp of whiskey, amazed that he had to tell all those fancy people with fancy degrees how to fix this! Satisfied that his work was finished, he logged onto Amazon to track the shipment of Mother's Day diapers he had sent Bristol Palin for their secret love child.